Tactics And Strategy

In a recent column, Father Frank Pavone, director of Priests for Life, told his readers: “If we want to rouse the public to action and change public policy, we must keep the primary focus where we have the psychological and pedagogical advantage - partial-birth abortion - and move from there to the less obvious issues.”

I would have to disagree with Father Pavone on this tactic because public opinion does not dictate the manner in which we help the public see the reality of what it means to murder a preborn baby. After all, the murder of the human embryo is no less devastating to that particular child than the murder of a nearly-born baby whose life is taken by the act of partial birth abortion, even if partial birth abortion is really an act of infanticide. In fact, the truth is that each preborn child dies an awful death when he is aborted and the public refuses to see it that way. They always have and they continue to do so. Why

Because we are helping them to do precisely that.

While it certainly is easier to expose those types of abortion that kill someone who really “looks like” a baby, it’s not advancing our goal. I daresay this is why the mushy middle suffers from such messy thinking. Polls tell us that the majority of people say they oppose abortion but also say that each woman should make that decision and the government should not interfere. This is not progress!

We know that of the 3,600 surgical abortions committed daily, fewer than one percent of the babies are killed by partial birth abortion. The vast majority of the dead are younger, much younger. It is my personal opinion that our task is to rouse public opinion and change public policy by focusing on each person who dies, each mother who fails to recognize her child as a human being and each legislator who fails to see what we see, while pretending to describe himself or herself as pro-life.

If we continue to publicly focus on the “obvious,” and wait until a later time to focus on the “less obvious issues,” (read: dead babies) we will fail. Why? Because, the less obvious has been avoided for so many years that even some pro-lifers choose not to face the facts. The failed Michigan effort is proof of that.

Politics and public opinion should not dictate our actions; but as long as they do, we will fail.